State v. Bourque’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Eyewitness testimony alone can be sufficient in some cases to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Dumaine, 534 So.2d 32 (La.App. 4th Cir.1988), writ granted on other grounds, 541 So.2d 880 (La.1989). However in this case, the only evidence which identifies this defendant as the one who committed the offense comes from an eleven year old child who acknowledged on redirect examination by the state that at best, he saw a white person fire the weapon who could have been the defendant, and the testimony of a bystander who admitted to having consumed an exorbitant amount of alcohol before the incident. That testimony standing alone contributes substantially toward a reasonable doubt in any rational fact finder's mind. When that evidence is combined with the contradictory testimony of the other witnesses and viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we are constrained to hold that the essential elements of the crime were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 907 So. 2d 739 - State v. Leger